With 2015 coming to an end and a new year just around the corner, it's nice to reflect on some of the positive things that have happened in the career world this year, from companies offering increased paid family leave to millennials teaching us what success should look like in the future. Here are a few of the top career stories of 2015 to help close out the year on a good note.

As they say, it happens to the bet of us. Getting stuck in your career isn’t the end of the road, it can actually be a hidden opportunity ready for the taking. Here are a few tips to help you get yourself out of a seemingly hopeless career rut and on your way to professional bliss.

Did you know your mother follows you to work? Well, she may not actually be following you to your desk, but her influence does. A recent study found that mothers play a unique role in what kind of worker you become. It turns out that a strong relationship with your mom may cause you to be less focused on money, and more focused on finding meaning and purpose in what you do.

What was on your mind this year? If you're like most of us in the working world, it was a combination of professional ambition, terror of unemployment, and need for distraction -- which we often satisfied by reading stories about celebrities' professional ambition, terror, distraction, etc. Certainly, PayScale Career News's top posts seem to indicate that's where our interest lay.

Journalism can be a thankless job with its low pay, long hours and tremendous risks. Italian war correspondent Francesca Borri penned a harrowing essay about life on the front lines of Syrian combat, a war zone she covers as a freelancer and, against the patronizing advice of others, as a woman.

You spend years acquiring a specialized skill. You go to school, land the coveted internship and then, your professional coming-of-age. You get the gig. After some time in the field, there's some technological breakthrough. It's exciting, historic and ... it puts you out of a job. Sound familiar?

May's national jobless rate released this week continue the slight, steady gains in employment. The economy added 175,000 jobs and the overall rate climbed up a tad to 7.6 percent. Nearly half those gains were by women. But don't celebrate just yet.

As the world becomes increasingly interconnected and the economy more complex, the demands of top professions have become broader and more nuanced. That's certainly true for accounting and finance jobs, which now require so much more than rote number crunching. But that change in expectations makes it difficult for companies to fill those roles.

A half-century after the advent of affirmative action, diversity in the nation's top professions appears to be stagnating. An analysis by the New York Times includes startling figures showing that the percentage of black doctors and architects, to name a couple fields, has remained the same for two decades.